The Good Life
by PM-and-E
Summary: Kasey has, thus far, been living a life the way he's always wanted. He didn't think could get any better, care free and living off the land, until the day he met a lovable and charismatic creature that came to be his closest friend for life, who likes to be called Rea. This is the story of how they met and their life together as they live it. ((A RE-upload with permission))
1. Before

**BEFORE**

Kasey has, thus far, been living a life the way he's always wanted. He didn't think could get any better, care free and living off the land, until the day he met a lovable and charismatic creature that came to be his closest friend for life, who likes to be called Rea. This is the story of how they met and their life together as they live it.

* * *

I'm kind of a lanky guy, on account of being 6' 2'' and a runner, but I'm much stronger than I appear. Medium length dark-brown hair that's pretty jagged and uneven (you try cutting your hair) and light blue eyes.

I've lived by myself in these mountains, the Uwharrie Mountains, in this valley for almost 4 years now; close to two years hard labor went into building the cabin I live in now, and this year was the first year I've spent living in it (it's a nice change from the tent I've called home for two years).

The Uwharries are an ancient range of mountains, the small stretch I inhabit are now reduced to large rolling hills and wide valleys by the passing of time, but the farther you head east the larger the mountains become; either way, they're all are dangerous to traverse due to a few key factors.

People are always disappearing in these mountains; if you venture about three more days deeper into them from where I am now, compasses and electronic devices stop working due to some kind of electromagnetic disturbance simply called 'The Anomaly'. Scientist have studied it, but they can't get close enough with equipment to get a good look. Even pictures from satellites turn up blurry when they take pictures of this continent, so we only know what the western half and the eastern coastlines of this land look like. That creates a lot of fear for these mountains among people, causing it to be pretty lonesome out here.

Another thing that keeps people away is the fact that most people are stupid. A little harsh? No, it's not; if others would use common sense (like, let's_not_try to cross this gorge on this dead tree, or lets_not_use this unknown cave system to cut through this mountain) there would be less deaths. Common sense and quick reaction have served me well enough.

I'm not completely alone though, the Pokémon that I share the valley with keep me company as I tend to my fields I managed cultivated in the first year I came out here, and my farmer/trainer friend, Henry, who I met by saving his life (or so he says, I think that I was just being a good person at the time, but that's a story for later) and his Pokémon companion, Bub, a Bulbasaur he was paired with in his first year of training, come by every now and then.

Henry is a strong looking fellow (kinda' stocky when compared to me) with freckly sun-burnt skin and flaming red hair. He started out on a journey to be a trainer when he was 15, like a good number of boys and girls do when Trainer License become available (I can't believe they used to let 10 year old's have licenses), and came to the Uwharries to become a better trainer but ended up becoming sort of a farmer like me. His idea of how he wanted to live his life was similar to mine, but with a few key differences.

The crops we tend to are different, as he puts most of his land and time into growing wheat and corn to grind up at his water mill during the winter for flour and grit (I trade with him and use the flour mostly for my deserts), whereas I grow more fruit and vegetables. We trade our produce often, and help each other out on tending our farms now and again. His farm is located about eight miles southwest of mine in a valley that's a lot wider than my own. Our ideas on Pokémon vary too, but we get along great.

I also started off in my 15th year on my own journey, but only because I knew exactly where I was going to go and what I wanted to do with my life and it took about five years to train and plan for it all. I was going to travel to these mountains and live my life till its end, independent and free.

For the most part,I don't believe in the capturing of Pokémon. I know, it sounds crazy to most, but there are a lot of people that share my views, and I just don't think you should beat down and then capture the creatures that you plan to raise and care for the rest of your and their lives. I believe that if a living being wants to be with you forever, to let you be the one responsible for its care and well being, they should be able to choose to do so. Of course, this view is also shared and practiced by a lot of people; only real scumbags abuse the technology to catch Pokémon. I just think the League System (the board that governs trainer laws and restrictions) should push these views harder, make them into laws.

There are plenty of Pokémon that I know and am friends with, like the old Honchkrow that lives in the huge oak tree above my spring, who I have come to call Mathew. We get along well enough and he comes down to the cabin every now and then when he smells that I am cooking some Iapapa berry pie, which he can't get enough of. He commands the Murkrow that populate my valley, but he doesn't ever seem to need them to do anything, other than to do stuff for me if I bake him a pie in return.

Henry and Bub come by when they aren't to busy with their own farm, or, much like Mathew, whenever they are close enough to smell my cooking. Henry hasn't even been out here for a full year yet, so he stays pretty busy.

My daily life consists of waking up with the Spearow, eating a light breakfast and going on run though the mountain trails around my land. After my run, I take a quick dip in the large pool-like reservoirs that I built bellow the runoff of the spring. I really enjoy my morning dip, for it wakes me up fully and I feel like I could do anything afterwards.  
The sun starts to rise above the mountains east of me around that time, so I go back to my cabin and have a full breakfast. I then climb on the roof to make sure the solar panels are clean and operational.

If the fact that I have solar panels is surprising, I also have a wind turret stationed on top of the mountain that my house sits at the base of, though I still need to buy a long enough cable to reach up there...

I said I lived off the land, not that I lived without technology. My cabin has electricity for lights and for computer access to the Pokémon database in case I need info on something or to store stuff (it's mostly filled with my emergency seed and food supply).

I like to keep it simple, and all I need technological I power from the earth and the sun. Any excess power I have left over goes into emergency storage in the cellar and to an access port outside under the kitchen window for any of the electric Pokémon in the area who need a little boost.

"Waste Nothing" I always say, and if something has a greater need of anything I own than I do, they are welcome to it.  
All this tech stuff, among other things, was picked up and airlifted in by Mathew's Murkrows. Mathew even let me fly him into town to purchase all of it (that was amazing! I saw why people like flying so much). It would have taken me at least three months to get it all here by myself (I would have never gotten the stove or computer out here), so I was very grateful. The pie I made him in return for this was enormous.

OK, after checking the panels, I go out into the fields and tend to my crops. I grow squash, cabbage, a small amount of soy beans (they don't like the mountain soil very much), corn, sweet and regular potatoes as my main crops on about 5 acres of land, and I have an acre and a half next to my house for the other vegetables, like my carrots, tomatoes, celery, and sweet-peas.

On another 7 acres of land there is an orchard that holds twenty or so apple trees, fifteen peach trees, a half dozen plumb trees, sixteen Pear trees, one of every kind pokéberry tree and bush you can think of (strangely enough, even out of season berries grow at the same time as the others), and one ancient walnut tree that takes up an entire half acre by itself (I don't like walnuts that much, but I shell hundreds of them just for the Murkrows).

It doesn't take much work to keep this orchard producing fruit; it was planted here long before I was born, by I don't know who, but whoever did it I thank them nearly every day, because it's the main reason why I chose to live here.  
Tending to the crops take a good eight hours hard work, less if Henry and Bub are with me, and by the time I am done it's past noon and time for a light lunch, usually held outside in the orchard under the shade of the mighty walnut tree. I always end up falling asleep for about an hour in the comfort of its shade, and upon waking I stretch myself and lay around for another thirty minutes, just enjoying the day and the fact that the hardest work I have to do is done.

I finally get up and stroll over to the house and begin to clean and sharpen the tools for tomorrow, putting them back into the old stone building that I just call a shed. It was probably the small house of whoever the owner of the orchard used to be.

I take one more look around the crops and orchard to make sure all the plants look OK, and then go inside to wash up and prepare for dinner. I have running water, gravity fed from the spring above the house, and I can even heat it with the solar powered water heater in the attic.

I consider myself to be a pretty good cook, and I think Henry, Bub, and Mathew would agree. Dinner mostly consists of something made out of vegetables, like soybeans with a kind of Pokéberry mixed in for taste, or some type of what most people call "Pokéfood" made out of the berries and stuff (I don't know why people think it's only for Pokémon, it has the same ingredients as most dishes, keeps well, and it tastes great).

Corn on the cob when it's in season, off the cob any other time of the year is a favorite of mine, and I finish up with a type of fruit or Pokéberry concoction for dessert. I change what kind of vegetable dish I make every day, usually based on what I have the most of, and I have an almost unlimited array of deserts and main courses I can make out of the Pokéberries and other fruit I grow.

I spend my time after dinner relaxing and reading (I love books), sometimes whittling Pokémon I have seen (I'm getting pretty good at it) or making a new handle for a tool.

After I take a hot shower in the side room of my house that serves as the bathroom/ computer room (the toilet it located outside in an outhouse), it's off to bed and my day (usually) ends.

It's a peaceful life, but I always know there's something missing.

I'm not an anti-social guy, but the life I like to live is in its nature (for the most part) a solitary one. Having friends like Mathew, Bub and Henry is alright, but as I get older I keep feeling the need for something more...meaningful.  
Someday a person or a Pokémon might want to spend its time to get to know me, maybe even staying here and helping me live out this life I chose.


	2. Meeting

**MEETING**

It was a nice spring day in mid-April, one of those days when it's almost too nice to do anything but lay around and enjoy life; hot enough to make sweat spring up as soon as you start working, but with a light breeze blowing now and again to cool you off and even things out. I had just finished my lunch under the walnut tree and was starting to nod off when I got the feeling that I wasn't the only one in the orchard.

I shrugged the sensation off; I couldn't be the only living thing in the valley to stop by the orchard today, so I continued to fall asleep, thinking to myself that it was probably just Mathew stopping by to snag a few of his favorite berries. With this thought, I slipped into my usual noontide nap and dreamt about what I was going to fix for supper. Halfway through dreaming about the deserts, my mind switched up on me and started a new dream; I felt something push its way into my arms, which were lying across my chest, and I smelled the sweet smell of Mago berries. My mind switched back to the first line of dreaming, and a cobbler made of Mago berries sounded like it'd be a fine dessert.

I awoke and opened my eyes to find the berry stained face of a Riolu looking right back at me, a slightly embarrassed look on its face, like it didn't know if it should be where it was.

I give it a reassuring little smile and lifted a hand to pat it on the head, which its eyes followed until I touched between its ears. It filched a little at first, until he/she realized that I wasn't going to harm it and allowed the contact, nuzzling its face into my shirt as I started to scratch behind one of its ears.

_"A Riolu_," I thought to myself,_"is a pretty rare Pokemon. I know Lucario can live in mountainous regions, but I had never seen any, or heard of them living in this part of the Uwharries...well it's not like anyone comes out here looking for Lucario in the first place anyway. I've seen any in real life myself, not even in the city."_

"It doesn't really matter where you came from," I mumbled aloud, "but you're probably hungry."

A little louder I asked it, "A few little Mago berries probably didn't fill you up, am I right?"

I was hardly expecting the response I received, for I heard the reply, "Ri!" out loud, but also in my head! Strangest part of this experience wasn't hearing another voice in my head, but the fact that I perceived it not as "Ri!" but the word_"Yes!"_

Now, I've met psychic-types before and had conversations with them, but this was...different. My confusion didn't last long, but I can think of only two possibilities at that time.

One: I can understand Pokemon! That thought was quickly swept aside when I remembered that I have never understood Mathew, Bub or any other Pokemon I have ever seen or talked to (the fact that they understand my language but I don't understand theirs proves that Pokemon are smarter than most give them credit...).

That left possibility number two: This Riolu has psychic abilities (telepathy for one) and I can understand what it thinks. I know that some Pokemon that aren't psychic-types use psychic moves, but for a wild Riolu to know them on its own?

Deciding to test it out, I sat up and asked her (I say her now because the voice in my head was a feminine one, and by looking at the Riolu over, I found it lacking 'male parts'. She also had a small white patch on her tail tip that resembled a thin heart, which set off the cute trigger in my mind and made me immediately like her (I've got a huge weakness for cute things; completely unmanly, but I deal with it).

"Would you like to come over to the house and eat something? I'll fix you a meal you'll never forget."

The quick reply was a "Rio-lu!" out loud, but by focusing my thoughts, all I heard was the_"Sounds great!"_in my head.

"Let's get going then," I said as I got up.

She hopped off me to the ground as I did so but she only walked forward a few steps before quickly let out a sharp cry of pain and jumped one legged back into me where I caught her. As she did all this I felt a sharp twinge in the bottom of my right foot that made me hop off of it, right onto a root; I tripped and fell flat on my back, taking the Riolu down with me.

Assuming that she had hurt her paw on something in the grass, and I must have felt her pain mentally, I said, "I'll carry you to the house and fix you up before we eat, OK?"

All I felt was a shiver from her and another, but not as bad, stab of pain in my foot.

After a quick bit of reading on Lucario/Riolu and from being around her, it turns out that she could talk_and_transmit her emotions, such as the great amount of relief she felt when I removed a piece of an old iron nail from her right paw and bandaged it up. Her ability to transmit emotion probably came from the aura abilities that I read about, mixed with her strange mental abilities.

The words of thanks I heard after I tied the bandage off weren't really words in Human speech, but more like how she felt in a very direct way that I interpreted as my spoken language. It's kind of confusing to explain, so it's easier to just think of her being able to speak the same as a human, but only mentally. There are Pokemon that can speak as a human does, it's a well known fact, but this...this is something different.

_"All better now?"_I asked, not with my voice, but with my thoughts, to see if the mental connection went both ways. I could feel something with her, like a connecting thought tethering me to her; it's another thing that's hard to explain.

She seemed surprised at the mental contact, but the only 'word' she gave in response was a_"Yep."_

And that was all I needed.

"I'll start dinner then. Make yourself at home," was the last thing I said to her for a while.

I left her sitting in my old overstuffed recliner and walked over into the kitchen, drawing out my cutting knives, pots, pans and all of the freshest vegetables and fruit I had. I had told her she wouldn't forget this meal, so I pulled out all the stops on my cooking skills and prepared the best thing I could think of.

I first put a pot and a kettle of water on the stovetop to boil, and then started slicing and dicing carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, and celery into chunks.

I open a jar of vegetable broth and add it to the pot of water and dumped the veggies in after it. While that simmered, I ground up some dried Figy berries and toss the powder in before stoking the fire to get the soup up to a roaring boil. Letting it die down and cook for a while, I started on the dessert I dreamt up out in the orchard. Washing and peeling the Mago berries, I baked them shortly over a very hot fire, so the outsides got all crispy while the insides stayed moist.

I then mashed them up, placed them into a shallow pan and made some dough to cover the whole thing; placing it into the oven over a low bed of coals was the final step. The kettle started to whistle, so took it off the stovetop and let a small bag of sliced and dried Pomeg berries seep for tea.

Throughout all this, I kept an eye on the Riolu, watching her as she looked around and soaked in her surroundings.

I felt a sense of curiosity emanating from her, and the thought_"So this is what the rest of the inside of this house looks like."_

She must have been living around my valley for a while, but had been too shy to visit. Her red eyes kept wandering around, pausing to look at my bookshelves packed tight with books that took up the lower right corner of the room.

I have books on all sorts of topics, ranging from books on farming, cooking, and of course Pokemon, to medical texts, fantasy, and a few that I have written on my own. The ones I wrote are really just journals filled with my random thoughts on things.

She studied my carvings of the Pokemon I have seen roaming the mountains that sit on the table next to her, and when she thought I wasn't looking, she watched me going about my work in the kitchen. If I glanced over at her while she was doing this, I could see the fur on her cheeks turn a darker shade of blue (the blushing just added to her cuteness) and she would quickly go back to looking around the house.

The chair she was sitting in is at the rear of the house between the beds and the bookshelves, with its back facing a large three panel bay window that looks up the mountain. The front faces the through and through fireplace that sits a little off-center to the middle of the room.

There is only one floor to my house, if you don't count the cellar and the attic, and only three rooms. I have two beds, my large one and a slightly smaller one for whenever Henry and Bub stop by in the back left corner of the main room.

The kitchen takes up the upper left corner of this room as you enter it through the large front door, with the cast iron wood stove standing alone across from the counter. The hatch to the cellar is on the backside of the stove, and is covered with a rug I wove out of old blue jeans(it's not the prettiest thing, but it serves its function).

The cellar is packed with jarred and preserved food, along with the emergency backup power supply batteries.

Other that the solar water heater, there's nothing in the attic but leftover wood from building the house, the chimney from the fireplace, the pipe from the stove and maybe a few Zubats (I don't mind them as long as they don't make a mess and keep the screeching down).

There is a single side door located on the left wall between my beds and the kitchen that leads into a smaller room that holds my bathtub/shower and the computer I use to access the Pokemon database.

If you haven't ever used one of these computers, they are pretty neat. They have a phone built in, and can access a database filled with the works and research done by Pokemon professors all over the world.

The coolest thing about them is the thing I understand the least. You can digitize an object or Pokemon(I think is a form of cruelty to put a life in there) and store it in the computer's hard drive or in a database somewhere so you can access it later. How its done, I have no idea, but I use it to store my emergency backup supply of seeds and food in case something happens to my crops (I have only used this supply once, but again, that's a story for later).

I am a little afraid of this feature of the computer, because if it can digitize seeds and Pokemon and they come back out still alive and OK, what happens if a person gets sucked into there? I've written a few chapters on that subject in my ramble journals.

There in a door leading outside in this room that I only use when I need to use the outhouse or to get firewood that's piled on both sides of the door.

The only other door I have in my house opens into my closet. This door is on the opposite wall, just a little further down from the bookshelves, and it just has my running shorts and shoes, my work boots, and my winter clothes along with my regular working clothes. I have a suit in the closet, but I don't really know why. I bought it when Mathew flew stuff out, but who needs to be dressed formally out here? That's my house, and I'm very proud of it (if you spent two years planning and building something yourself, you'd be proud too).

All of these new things must have been a little overwhelming for her, or so I felt, because she soon had lain back in my chair and fallen asleep. The smell of the finished soup soon wafted around the house, and that seemed to wake her up and remind her how hungry she was.

I laid out the now cooled cups of Pomeg tea, the bowls of hot soup and spoons onto the table, and then had a thought.

_She has...well, I wouldn't call them paws; each digit had two knuckles, like a thumb, so she could hold a spoon...but she's a wild Pokemon, she's probably never seen a spoon, let alone used one._

She must have heard that thought, because she got out of that chair, limping a bit on her foot, came over to the table and sat down with look and a thought that meant, "I'll show you what a 'wild' Pokemon can do", and picked up a spoonful of hot soup and slurped it down.

When I say 'hot soup' I mean 'hot soup', and I felt like I had burnt my tongue and the back of my throat. She gasped and gulped down her glass of tea, and a soothing coolness was felt over the scorched area of my mouth.

"Okay, so you can use a spoon, I guess I underestimated what you could do,'' I said aloud, and thought to myself, careful to just say it to myself, that she had probably watched me eat through the bay window, which the table was in view of, but had not watched carefully enough.

She had probably seen me do other things too. You can see some of the inside of the house through that window, but not all of it.

"The soup is still a little too hot to eat, but if you blow on it before you eat it, that should cool it down", I advised her, and did it to my own spoon of soup.

She took the advice with an embarrassed glance at me, and tasted the soup properly for the first time. I expected her to like the soup, and she didn't disappoint me with her reaction. I felt an immense amount of satisfaction, either from her or from myself when I saw the look on her face at the taste. She couldn't cool it down fast enough to eat it, and almost burnt herself again.

"Just wait till you try the desert." I told her after she had finished her second, albeit more slowly eaten, bowl of soup.

I went over to the oven and pulled out the Mago berry cobbler and set it on the table. The smell alone made both of us drool, and we both had thoughts of anticipation, hers stronger than mine, to see what it would taste like. I had never tried out this recipe before, but had always wanted to.

I dished us out a large portion each and told her to dig in.

_"If she likes it more than she liked the soup, she'll probably pass out,"_was the stray thought that floated through my mind (she was to focused on the cobbler to hear what I was thinking right then). I waited to see her reaction before I tried my own portion, and as she lifted the spoon to her mouth, I thought it might not be so bad if she would stick around for a while, maybe she'd like it too; if she liked the cobbler, I would ask her later on if she would.

She ate the portion of cobbler, chewing it with a face that looked like she would cry, and swallowed. Her feelings were confusing to me, as it was a mix of something between joy and what I could describe, with my limited amount of personal knowledge on the feeling, as something close to love.

_This must be some good cobbler._

She suddenly jumped across the table, knocking over her plate as she did so, and tackled me out of my chair. As I laid there on the floor, covered in cobbler and Riolu, I wiped some crust off my cheek and asked her, " So...did you like it?"


	3. A New Day

**A NEW DAY**

* * *

I woke up to the familiar sound of the Spearow calling to one another, and to the unfamiliar feeling of a warm fuzzy something lying wrapped in my arms instead the pillow that usually occupied that space. Hardly anything surprises me, but opening my eyes to find the sleepy face of another creature sharing my pillow gave me a pause for thought.

After the cobbler incident, we had spent most of the night talking to one another, telling our stories about how we came to be where we were now. I had told her of my childhood, how I had been born in Troy, a smallish town three days west of here and how I had to move away to the city because of my mother's job. She was a Pokémon nurse back in Troy until she got an offer for a position in some organization that deals with developing rocket technology or something along those lines, while also somehow dealing with Pokemon. She only takes care of the members and their Pokémon when they get hurt and was never fully told what they did, so she didn't know much about what went on in the business.

She taught me everything she knows so I could become a doctor or nurse like her; medical knowledge dealing with both Pokemon and humans alike.

I liked healing, but the people she worked for always seem to get themselves and their Pokémon hurt, and I didn't want to deal with people who couldn't take care of a life. It always made me mad to see that something under a persons care (whether it be themselves or another life) could get hurt like what I saw whenever I went with mom to work, and that anger finally made me decide not to become a doctor.

Back in Troy, my mother would spend her free time growing most of the food she cooked for us, but after we moved to the city her new job kept her from doing this.

The apartment complex we lived in had an empty grass lot next to it, so I decided to take up her hobby and made a garden to start growing food for her to cook. Once again, her job left her with little time for stuff like cooking, so I took that up too.

I ended up being the one cooking most of the meals for everyone, and after awhile, I was the only person doing any actual cooking. It didn't bother me, because it was something I really enjoyed. Since my dad worked mostly from home, he was the one who spent the most time with my two sisters and me.

My dad is an ex-professor and a retired teacher from Ante-University, a huge school (with multiple locations across the continent) for people who don't want to go out into the world to become a Trainer, but want to have a regular job or become professors and nurses like dad and mom. My eldest sister Anna, who is now twenty-six years old, was enrolled there and graduated before dad retired. She is now a Professor up north somewhere (I can never recall the name of the town) and studies Ice Pokémon.

My second sister, Rachel, is 16 years old and is currently studying at the university with a scholarship enrollment for her work on Water Pokémon.

I had received 3 emails about two month ago from everyone saying that they would try to visit me if they could (before I had the computer set up, my dad's Fearow, Stewart, would carry letters so we could all stay in contact). They are all extremely busy with their work, except dad (he's still in the loop with the scientific community and sends me any interesting new stuff people discover), and probably won't come and see me for a while yet (three years, five months and counting...).

I explained to Rea how my dad was the one who had gotten me interested in farming for a living, seeing that my views on treating Pokémon and lack of interest in going to the university would hinder any careers that I could go into, so he had a buddy in the Pokémon Rangers, Saul, show me how I could live off the land until I got a properly settled, how to build a house and how to take care of myself out in the wild.

I had always been an outdoorsy type of person and had a love of plants, so after five years of being taught by Saul I decided to come back to my hometown and head out into these mountains to see what I could accomplish.

I left our family apartment with a pack full of clothes, food, and seeds along with a double headed axe, shovel, hatchet, my tent and my wits. Everyone was there, mom and my sisters crying, my dad with his normally relaxed face tinged with pride and sadness. They said they would all write as soon as I sent the letter that I promised I would send once I reached Troy, and dad reassured me that Stewart could find me once I found a suitable place to set up the farm. We had a final group hug, and I turned away from that life waving and went off to start my own.

* * *

Now that she knew how I had come to be here, she told me her story.

She said that when she hatched from her egg in the spring, she had hatched alone in a forest clearing among a part of the mountains far southwest of here, and that she waited for her parents or someone to come and get her. After two weeks of waiting, she had eaten all the food she could find around the clearing and had been forced to leave it or she would starve.

She also had stopped believing that her parents would come and claim her (she started to cry when she said this, so I warmed up some cobbler and let her eat before she continued), so she ran from the clearing and headed north.

She spent six years taking her time roaming the mountains, slowly heading north. She got through the first five years on her own with little trouble (mostly because there were mild winters those years) but when fall rolled around again it had dumped feet of snow onto the mountains, and she had shared a cave with a bunch of hibernating Ursaing and Teddiursa (one of the Teddiursa woke up and invited her to stay, assuring her that the Ursaing wouldn't wake up and eat her).

In the spring of this year she left that range of mountains and continued her way north until she felt like there was something only a few days walk ahead of her that made her want to reach it as soon as possible, so she ran.

It had only taken her two days to reach my valley, which made since, for Riolu have incredible stamina and can run all day and night if they have the need to. She had been lead to my valley by the aura of well-being and happiness that emanated from the creatures that live in the mountains around my farm and from me. As she got closer she also smelled my cooking, and that combined with the good feelings of my valley made her decide to scope out the house and see who and what lived there.

A week went by as she talked to the Pokémon who live around it, to see why they were so content and happy. They had told her that the valley had abundant amounts of food and that there was a human (I was the first ever human she'd seen) living in the house on the south side of the valley that loved and cherished this land as much as they did.

He had helped heal them when they were injured or sick, and would do anything to protect this land and those who lived on it. He also wasn't one of those humans who would attack you with their own Pokémon just to capture you in one of those ball things (she had never heard of a Pokéball before, which made sense; if you've never seen a Human, you've never seen a Pokéball), which they said allowed them to relax and not have to worry about fighting.

At the suggestion of some Murkrows, she had even climbed Mathew's oak at my spring and talked to him about me. Mathew had said that I was the best thing to happen to this valley since the orchard was planted (he is really old, but probably the strongest Pokémon in the entire Uwharries).

"He came ta' this valley three years ago and happens' to be a very capable and kind human. He started callin' me Mathew, once we got to know one another, and I liked it so much I let'r stick. Hes always been mighty helpful to the Pokémon round here and will go out of his way to do something for them. Kasey's cooking is the best thing about em' though; I'm down to his house faster than you can say 'Magikarp' when I smell he's cooking Lapapa pie", she quoted.

All that coupled with smelling my cooking for a week made her finally start to watch me to see if the things they said about me were true. She had taken to following me around on my daily routine, watching me as I tended my crops and (as I guessed) seeing what she could see of my life inside my house from the bay window around back. She said that I seemed like a great person and that she wanted to meet me, but her nerve always failed when she tried. On one of these attempts out in the orchard she had panicked a little and ended up in my arms without knowing how it happened.

* * *

"Are you glad that you did it?" I asked her when she was done.

She stumbled with her reply, and there was that confusing 'first taste' feeling emanating from her that made me say, "I'm glad that you did."

That really seamed to make her happy, so I decided to go ahead and bite the dust and ask her the question.

"Would you like to stay with me..." was about as far as I got, because she had once again dove across the table and tackled me out of my chair.

"If this is going to be a regular occurrence, I'm going to have to build a more stable chair" I gasped out once I got my wind back.

I stood up with her still wrapped around my neck and flopped into my recliner.

"Do you have a name you'd like me to call you?" was the first thing I asked when her happiness subsided and she slid off my neck into my lap.

"I never had anybody to talk to long enough to need a proper name, so you help me think of one,"was her reply.

I sat there with her in my lap for a while, scratching behind one of her ears and letting our thoughts mingle over possible names until she started to nod off.

With my mind, I asked her,"Is Rea your name?"

With a sleepy thought she replied," Ree-Ah? Ree-Uh?...Rea. I love it."

I gently scooped her out of my lap and placed her in the guest bed next to mine, and before I turned off the lights I sent out one last thought to her,"Goodnight Rea."

She smiled, but was already asleep.

* * *

The fact that Rea had decided to change beds during the night made little difference to me. It was her decision to stay with me, and if she wanted to share a bed, so be it. My bed is huge, so there is enough room for the both of us (though, if this morning is any indication, she'll probably end up cuddled against me...no problem with that, as long as it doesn't get akward) and it keeps me from having to change the sheets whenever Henry and Bub come over.

Less work is good work.

These thoughts must have woken her up, for the thought,"Good morning,"came drifting into my head from her.

"Good morning Rea," was my reply, and I felt her thrill of joy at having a name.

She squirmed out of my arms (she seemed a little embarrassed), yawned, and stretched...well...kinda' like a Persian before jumping up and down on the bed, saying"Get out of bed, sleepy, and let's start the day!"

"A real morning person, eh? That's great," was my sarcastic reply (I love waking up, best part of my day).

"Your foot seems to be better," I said as I slipped out of the sheets and pulled on some shorts over my boxers. I usually sleep in the nude because I already have enough clothes to wash and being seen naked doesn't bother me (that much), but having Rea in the house that night changed my opinion on that subject. She's a girl, a Pokémon (like that makes any deference), but still a girl, and I haven't really been around that many girls before, and never around any naked (regrettably, but that's what I get for living out here...and for never asking any out).

"Totally healed,"She said and showed me that her foot was indeed completely healed,"Whatever you put on it must have been really good."

"It was just some...Witch-Hazel mixed with Buckwheat and a Dock leaf compress. I use it to stop bleeding and to keep inflammation down; it seemed to work wonders with your foot," I said.

A pair of socks was the last thing I put on before walking over to the kitchen to stoke the oven fire for some toast with Pomeg berry preserves. We ate the light breakfast together on the front porch, and while I laced up my shoes I teasingly ask her, "Since you've been stalking me for a week, do you know what my favorite thing to do in the morning is?"

"You like to run around the mountains before you check all that stuff on the top of your house,"was her answer.

"That's close, but I do something else before I come back to the house that I really enjoy" I said as she readied a retort.

"When you go off to run, it was hard to stay with you without making too much noise, and I decide to stop when you get halfway across the valley and head back your house to wait for you to return. You always come back looking refreshed, but I never could figure out why."

"Then you're in for a treat this morning and every morning after, because I'll share my secret with you at the end of our run. You ready to go?"

In reply, she dashed down the front steps of the porch we were sitting on and sent a thought back at me back at me,"The sooner we start, the sooner you get to share your secret with me!"

That first run we shared will be with me forever, because it was way to fast, but mostly because it was so fun. I had found a partner who could do this all day, but settled for when I was done. She showed off the entire run, bouncing and flipping of rocks as I ran past them and sprinting ahead of me just to impress. I managed to do a front flip off a small bolder and not die, so she of course had to show me up and completed a triple front flip over my head as I went between two large tree stumps.

We started back towards the house, but before we took the trail down, I angled up towards the spring. When we arrived at the spring, I showed her where the runoff went between a pair of boulders and emptied into my reservoir.

"Here's the secret; this is how I ready myself for the day, and now we can get ready to face the day together."

Rea seemed to like the fact that she now had the missing piece to my morning routine, and was eager to get into the water. I took my clothes off (boxers stayed on) and hoped on in. The splash got Rea, who was still on the bank, soaking wet, and she glared at me as I looked at her from under the crystal clear water. As I surfaced, I brushed water from my eyes and looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be found.

Hoping that I hadn't gotten her mad at me already, I called out "Rea, come back, I'm sorry for splashing you!"

"Oh, you'll be sorry all right!"was the thought I heard coming from the top of one of the boulders. Rea launched herself off the bolder and cannonballed the water right in front of me, momentarily blinding me with water. When she surfaced she tried to dunk me, but only succeeded to sit on my shoulders, choke me with her legs and to push my head around. It did, however, give me the chance to grasp her by the feet and dive under with her. We both came up spluttering and laughing, splashing each other with water.

Rea turned out not to be the best of swimmers, and soon got tired and rested on my back as I swam around. We got out and air-dried by dashing around the spring, just playing and goofing around. We must have woken Mathew up with all that racket, because he poked his head around the opening of his rotted-out tree bole and gave us both a talking to (he must have had a long night). I gathered my clothes and put them back on, then we descended back down to the house.

* * *

That was our routine every morning for little over a month as we got to know one another better. In the fields as I worked I constantly shared with Rea all I knew about the land and plants and answered any question she might ask as best as I could. We familiarized ourselves with each others way of talking and thinking, and eventually I reached some conclusions.

It turns out that we can share our feelings and emotions with each other unconsciously, like water from one end of a lake to another, but we can stop sharing if we want (we haven't yet). To talk or share thoughts and memories we have to make a conscience effort to pass them back and forth, but it's not hard at all to do so.

She wanted to learn how to read and write after I read a few pages from my ramble journal on the topic of Humans and Pokémon (I think that they are one and the same; science doesn't lie), so I taught her just by giving her my memories of how I learned. She was a fast learner, and even started a diary of her own.

The best thing about our connection is kind of difficult for me to explain. I've seen so much stuff in my life that has no real meaning or purpose, like the cartoons I watched when I was younger, and they always pop into my head whenever I stray off in thought. It's annoying to have that much useless info in my head, but now that I'm connected with Rea, they don't bother me any more. I guess having a shared emotion and thought process left no room for all that unwanted stuff, and for that I am grateful.

We hang out in the orchard late into the afternoons after work and sometimes slept there until morning, waking up to a sunrise and a dew covered forest that reflected itself a million times. One such morning as we were coming back to the house from the spring, Rea sitting on my shoulders with a handful of my hair in each hand to steady herself as she rode me down the trail, we came into view of the house and she stopped me with a quick jerk of her arms.

"There's someone in the house,"she said.

Not overly worried, I tweaked her toes, cracking the knuckle, and continued walking, saying, "Lets go and see want they want for breakfast."


	4. Friends Help Friends

**FRIENDS HELP FRIENDS**

* * *

As it turned out, Henry and his laid back Bulbasaur Bub were both asleep as we entered the house; Henry sprawled out on the guest bed, Bub in my recliner.

"Let them sleep, henry hates waking up early; he and Bub must have gotten up before we did to get here in time for breakfast. That's about the only thing that will get him out of bed. Let's get started on making the food," I said to Rea as she jumped off my shoulders as I bent over to unlace my shoes.

"I've never seen another human in person besides you,"she said,"why's his hair red and his face so freckly?"

This made me laugh, and I received another reminded that Rea had never seen any of the world outside of these mountains, other that what I had shared with her from my mind (I can't tell if she's interested in seeing more of the world, or if she's fine with staying out here).

"Humans, like all other Pokémon, come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Henry's from up farther north that I am, and some people from the north look like he does. I'll have to show you all the interesting places and people in the world one day," I replied and then asked, "How does a fresh fruit salad with some slices of cold apple pie from last night to finish it off sound?"

"Add some of the toast we had earlier, and it sounds like a tasty breakfast for four!"was the reply I got from outside, because she had already dashed out to the orchard to grab the fruit.

I sent the thought,"Take one of the basket from the shed to carry the fruit!"flying after her as I readied the knifes, plates and bowls for the incoming fruit.

I went ahead and fixed the toast and set the table for four...minus a seat. I need to make more chairs.

I must have been a little too loud setting the table, for Bub woke up and greeted me with a yawning "Bulbaaaa" from my chair.

"Good morning to you too, Bub" I said, and then I told him, "I have a new friend for you to meet, and her name is Rea; she's a Riolu. I'm sure you'll become great friends and that Henry's in for a surprise when he meets her."

He yawned again and gave me a nod of his head, then slipped of my chair and strolled over to the open front door to watch the sun creep up in the east.

Rea soon said to me that she was done gathering the fruit, and that she had gotten apples, peaches, pears, plumbs, some Watmel berries, and had found some wild strawberries growing behind the walnut tree.

"I'll have to transfer some of those into the garden next to the house, so don't let me forget," I said to her as she walked in, shying around Bub, and deposited the basket of fruit at my feet.

I chopped the fruit into medium slices, taking out some of the seeds and sitting them on the windowsill over the sink to dry out a little. I would either store them for planting later, or give them to Henry if he needed some.

She seemed shy when she saw Bub on her way in, so to introduce her I had her call him over and translate for me as I asked "Do you mind doing your Razor Leaf attack at the back of the stove so they'll bounce off and I can collect them without prying them out of something?"

"Bul-ba" or "Sure thing, nice to finally be able to talk to ya," was his response.

He commenced the attack on the stove, actually scratching the metal a bit with the force of the blows (he's really much stronger than he acts). I asked Rea to help pick up the leaves, but as she bent down to grab one she hesitated, asking,"If the leaves are sharp enough to cut the stove, won't they cut us?"

"After the leaves make contact or miss their intended target, they become just as sharp as a regular leaf. Most people don't know, but these leaves have a wonderfully tangy-minty taste to them, and make a great tea. I'll have to get you to do that again before you leave Bub, so I can have a good stock saved up," I answered her question aloud as I was putting the picked up leaves to boil.

"I taught him that, and I believe," said Henry from the bed, "that the smell of Razor Leaf tea is so good it could wake up a Snorlax."

"It got you up, didn't it?" I jokingly said to him as he reached the table, sat down and started to munch on a piece of toast.

He noticed Rea, who was being shy again and hiding behind my legs as I finished mixing the salad, and asked, "Who's your new friend there Kasey?"

"My name's Rea,"she said without coming out from behind me.

Henry nearly fell out of his chair when he heard her response, and looked around the house, then at me, and asked, "Is that a Riolu, and did it just talk?"

"Yes I did, and the name's Rea, not 'it',"was her snappy reply, and this time he did fall out of his chair.

"She talks using mental telepathy, and you better be polite to her Henry," I laughed, then continued to say, "She can even hear your thoughts and send her feelings through to you. The feeling-sending thing probably has to do with aura-abilities though," I explained to him.

"I only let you talk to me that way, and you're the only one I want to know how I feel,"Rea said in a protective voice.

I was surprised with the quickness I corrected myself; in a somewhat embarrassed voice, I said "Scratch that last thing I said; she'll only do that with me, along with allowing you talk to her with your thoughts."

Henry paused, evidently in thought, then gave me a knowing look and didn't question any further.

"That's pretty cool," he admitted as he retrieved his fallen piece of toast and continued eating it (that's the great thing about Henry; give him food and he'll get over anything).

"Sorry about the "it" thing; hearing your voice in my head startled me a little and I couldn't decide if I should listen to the vocal Pokéspeech or the mental human one."

"I can hear both, but my mind puts more focus on the metal aspect," I said.

"I don't think I have the focus to differentiate between the two. Don't worry though, I'll work on it. How'd the two of you meet?"

With Rea's permission, I told him over breakfast how she had traveled to my valley, how she scouted me out and finally of how we meet in the orchard.

He gave me that look again (what's he thinking...) and said, "That's quite a story, and I hope you guys have a great time together. It's good to know that your not a lonely hermit out here any more." he joked.

"I'm no more a "lonely hermit" than you are now," I replied, flicking a bit of strawberry at him.

* * *

After breakfast, I changed into my work clothes and we sat on the front porch for a while and watched Bub and Rea goof around.

"You know I like it when you come over, but I sense that this is no ordinary visit," I said to him.

He sighed and said, "Your right, its not. You remember that story you told me, the one about how you had to fight off that Snorlax in the second year you were here, the year we met, and how it ate all your crops, half the valley, and almost the entire orchard?"

"How could I ever forget old Ci-lax. I was only able to get rid of him with Mathew's help, and even then Mathew had to take one of his eyes out to make him leave. You never want to threaten Mathew's Iapapa Berry supply, and Ci-lax earned his name finding that out. Why'd you bring him up?"

Henry sighed again and said, "You can start calling him "Blind-lax", because he stopped by my farm four nights ago and ate everything. The entire wheat field and more than half the corn is gone after he cleaned out all of the natural growing food in my valley. Bub was furious, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I didn't try to stop him, so he went and found Ci-lax as he was about to fall asleep out in the fields and attacked him. Bub got beat up pretty good in the fight, but ended up driving Ci-lax back into the mountains. He left his other eye out in the field to one of Bub's vines but got a new name in return. I have plenty of seed saved up to replant next year, and still have the small vegetable garden around back to produce some of what Bub and I need before winter.

I stopped by today to see if I could trade some work on your farm for some of your preserved fruit, and for some seeds so I can start my own Pokéberry patch. What do you say?"

I looked over at Henry and said to him "Henry, you're my best and only (with a quick glance at Rea) human friend and you should know the most important one of my motto's."

"To never try eat more pie than you can handle?"

"What? No you big goofball! "If something has a greater need of anything I own than I do, they are welcome to it", that motto!" I yelled at him and took a swipe at his arm,"And you don't have to work for that stuff either. You'll help me out because you're my friend, and that's what friends do. Now let's get going, we're wasting daylight."

He smiled and said thanks, and we headed out into the fields.


	5. Full of Surprises

**FULL OF SURPRISES  
**

* * *

The work went by fast that morning, seeing as I've have never had that many friends helping before. We finished weeding the main field in little less than 3 hours and moved back to the house to weed the garden, which only took about one hour to complete. After I went over and gathered 4 baskets from the shed, we started picking whatever was ripe from the fields; the corn, potatoes, squash, and some of the cabbage was gathered, but no soybeans.

"If you have any soybeans saved up, I could take a few and see if they grow any better at my place. I get more sunlight than you do, and I get it from a different angle," Henry said as he was bent over inspecting one of the soy plants.

"They really don't like this mountain soil, so they'll probably do the same for you as they did for me. I'll give you some if you want to try it out though," I replied.

"I'll make it work," he replied.

We moved back to the garden and removed all the ripe vegetables there, then sat our loaded baskets behind the shed in the shade and took a break. We had finished the work that would usually take me eight hours to complete in less than five. Working like that isn't an everyday thing though; I'll skip every other day to do other chores and take a day off every now and again to relax (I've started to take more days off since Rea arrived, with zero negative side effects).

Once I get the crops started at the beginning of spring they pretty much take care of themselves, and all I have to do is weed and pick whatever grows. It may seem that I have too much stuff growing for one person to eat, but I store most of what I grow and live off it during the winter until I get new stuff growing in the spring.

Everything else is fresh food to cook and free to give.

"I haven't had this much free time on a work morning since, well, never." I told everyone, "So I'll put the time to good use. Let's break the ground behind the walnut tree and start a strawberry patch there."

"I didn't know you had strawberries growing around here," Henry said.

"If you looked at what you eat before scoffing it, you'd have seem that there were some in the salad you ate for breakfast," I replied.

"I found them this morning when I was getting the fruit,"Rea said to all of us.

Henry jumped a little when she started talking and said, "I'll never get used to that," but I knew he was just joking.

Rea reminded me about transferring some strawberries closer to the house, so with a thought I explained, "I decided that instead of digging the plants up and replanting them near the house, I might as well keep them where I know they like to grow."

Henry didn't want to waste any time (he wanted to be done in time for lunch) so the four of us got up to scout out the berry patch.

After we arrived and looked around at the small patch of strawberries I pointed out, "We're going to have to clear out the underbrush from here to that dead Hickory tree to have a good size patch."

Bub went ahead and used Razor Leaf on the underbrush, angling his shots so the leaves ended up hitting the dead tree.

As Bub sent a few more volleys of Razor Leaves through the undergrowth, Henry answered the question both Rea and I were thinking.

"That old Hickory will eventually fall over one day, so I think it's a good idea to go ahead and cut it down now. Bub's Razor Leaf attack should be a good start for us when we start hacking at it."

I said, "I guess it's never too early to stock up on firewood, and some of those branches look about right for hammer and axe handles in case you need any."

"I might save one or two for handles, but I'm pretty sure that I'm OK for the moment." Henry replied.

* * *

While Bub finished his job, I asked Rea to accompany me back to the shed to help me bring the tools Henry and I would need to clean and prep the area for planting and to bring the tree down.

As we neared the shed, she stopped me and asked,"What happened to that Snorlax upset you didn't it?"

I sighed and said, "I was mad at Mathew for a while after what he did to drive Ci-lax off, but then I conceded to the fact that what he had done was not a selfish act, but he did it to protect the entire valley from harm. That Snorlax would have eaten everything it could, until there was nothing left, and that would have destroyed the lives of every Pokémon here, not to mention my own. Ci-lax was only doing what Snorlax do naturally, but after what happened to him over at Henry's... I'm not mad at Bub or Henry mind you, I just feel bad for the way he had to be dealt with. I know there really wasn't any other way, but I wish there was..."

I started to tear up a little, and I tried to brush the moisture from my eyes before Rea could see; she didn't need eyes to tell how I felt though, and she started to cry.

"You shouldn't have to deal with the way I feel if it makes you sad," I told her after I had sat down with her and brought her into a hug until she calmed down.

She hiccuped and said,"I told you earlier that you were the only one I wanted to share my feelings with, so I want to feel the way you feel too."

"I love knowing how you feel about things, and if you want to know how I feel, I want you to be the only one too," I replied.

That made her cry again, but not because she was sad. I felt the same as she did, and that's the way we wanted it. She stopped crying as I stood up with her in my arms and continued to the shed, and she apologized for being so emotional.

"Don't apologies, it's the way we both felt and nothing to be sorry about. Now let's see a smile on that face!" I said as I started to tickle her sides.

"HAHAAHAHAASTOPITSTOPITHAHAHATHATTICKLES!"she yelled and she struggled to get out of my grip and away from my fingers.

"Now that's more like it," I said once she escaped my grasp and lay in the grass smiling and catching her breath. "What do you say to finishing up this strawberry patch?" I asked her.

She got up and with a final giggle said,"Let's do it."

* * *

We brought the tools back to the now cleared underbrush patch and began to rake up the fallen plants. We formed a large pile out of all the debris out farther into the woods surrounding the orchard, and then Henry and I picked up the axes and started on the tree. Bub's Razor Leaf attack did minor damage to the dead tree, mostly just embedding the leaves into the trunk.

"It didn't help as much as I thought it would, but it's the thought that counts, right?" Rea translated for Bub as I determined which way I wanted the tree to fall.

"Cutting down the brush before hitting the tree must have dulled the attack some. This tree already leans to the north a bit, and it seems that there are only some small Pine saplings in the way if that's the way it was to fall. You can start on the wedge cut on the north facing side, and I'll start the falling cut on the other," I said as I hefted my axe and walked over to the south facing side of the tree.

Before I started, I asked Rea and Bub, "Will you guys watch out for any branches that look like they might fall on us as we cut?"

They nodded their heads and went away to sit at the edge of the Walnut tree's shade to get a better view of the upper limbs.

"You ready?" I asked Henry, and he replied, "Let's get started!"

The sound of our axes making contact with hard dead wood soon filled the orchard, and Pokémon in the area came to see what all the racket was about.

"If you want to, you can go and introduce yourself to any of the local Pokémon you haven't meant yet ," I thought to Rea as I chopped.

"I can do that any time, but now I'm trying to make sure that you aren't impaled or crushed by any branches that fall. You asked me to 10 minutes ago, remember?"she replied.

"I hadn't forgotten, but if my safety is your main concern, you may continue in your duties," I joked.

Henry's side was done first, because he only had to cut a quarter of the way through the tree so that side would be the way the tree fell, and we soon took turns on chopping my side. This tree was big enough for my arms to wrap around it almost twice, so it took us another half an hour of axe-work before we started hearing the tell-tell cracking of the tree beginning to fall.

"Let's back off to where Rea and Bub are before this thing falls over." I said to Henry after a loud series of cracks and groans began emanating from the trunk.

"Good idea" agreed Henry, and we shouldered our axes and left the tree to fall safely on its own.

"No branches fell,"said Rea to us as we strolled over.

"Thanks for keeping watch, you did great," I thought as I sat next to her in the shade.

CRACK! GROOOOAAANNNN!

"Sounds like the old tree's finally had it!" Henry yelled happily from his standing position next to Bub. I stood up for a better view and Rea scrambled up my back onto my shoulders so she could watch too. The dead Hickory leaned farther and farther in the desired direction, until something gave away in the trunk and it came crashing down with a ground shuddering boom.

"Right where I wanted it t..." I stopped in mid sentence, because for some reason there was a boulder flying in the air towards us.

* * *

We didn't have time to run for it, we hardly had time to think, so Henry and I reactively cover Bub and Rea with our bodies in an attempt to keep them from harm.

In the small span of that few seconds, I felt a strange sensation coming from Rea, and opened my eyes to find hers glowing with light. I also felt a large object hovering my shoulder as we laid there, then felt the ground shudder as the boulder (the hovering object as it turns out) shifted to the side and fell to the left of us.

"Kasey...are we dead yet?" whispered Henry as he turned his head towards me with his eyes still shut, "I'm afraid to look."

Rea's eyes returned to normal after the boulder fell and I thought to her, "That was you, wasn't it? You saved us..." I trailed off, a loss for words.

"Like you said, your safety is my main concern, so of course I saved you, even if I don't know how I did it,"Rea said softly, belittling the great strength she had just shown.

I grabbed her, rolled over and hugged her to my chest, planting a big kiss on her cheek that made them turn a darker shade of blue, saying to Henry, "No Henry, were not dead, so you can stop crushing Bub and open your eyes now. Rea saved us!"

He opened his eyes slowly, one at a time, took stock of his soundings with a quick glance around (and a even quicker glance up at the sky), got off of Bub and yelled at no one in particular as he laid eyes on the boulder, "Where in the hell did that monsters thing come from, and how are we still alive!?"

He then fell over onto his knees (his legs must have given out in astonishment).

It really was a monster of a rock, more than half the size of a Snorlax and covered in thick red clay.

"I just said it was Rea; my guess is that she used her psychic powers to stop the boulder in time, even though she says she doesn't know how she did it," I answered.

I could see that this was a little too much for Henry, so I told him to go over and lay down with Bub, who didn't seemed too phased from nearly being crushed by the boulder, and calm down.

"Rea and I will go check where that rock came from," I said as we got up and headed over to the fallen tree.

* * *

We walked along the trunk so we would have a clear path through the now destroyed Pine sapling patch till we arrived to a spot halfway up the trunk where it had split in two. Under the shattered spot was another tree (a Willow) propped up on a boulder, its large hairy root system up in the air.

To Rea I said, "I think I know what happened. That Willow tree was growing at an angle against that boulder, out into the Pine trees, when our tree fell on it and made it into a giant se-saw. That huge boulder must have been in the ground under the tree wrapped up in its roots and was catapulted out and over towards us."

"Sound about right,"Rea replied as she jumped to the boulder and looked at the gaping hole the roots and rock had excavated.

"There are a lot of weird shaped rocks in this hole," she said as she peered over the boulder,"I'm gona' grab one so you can see."

"Be careful,"I thought as I looked back over my shoulder to see if Henry was doing any better.

He was still sitting next to Bub, but seemed to have pulled himself together and was cracking and munching on some walnuts that were lying around under the tree.

"Here's the biggest one I could pick up,"said Rea as she tossed a hexagonal shaped cylinder of a rock as long as my forearm over the boulder before jumping over her self, making me drop the rock to catch her.

"That's some thick clay you got into," I said as I looked down at my now red chest and at the clay-caked Riolu.

"It's filled with those strange rocks though,"she said while she put red paw marks on my cheeks and giggled.

I tweaked her nose and rolled the rock with my foot into a position that allowed me to kick it up and let Rea grab it, seeing that I had no free hands carrying her.

As I walked back down the trunk, Rea picked some of the clay off the rock and said,"The rock is as red as the clay is."

"Maybe it'll look nice polished up. As dirty as we are, I think we'll make a second trip to the spring today. We can clean it up properly there," I said as we reached the stump of the tree.

I hoped off the trunk and sat Rea down, then strolled over to Henry and Bub and sat down beside them. Rea fell back into my lap, still picking the clay off the rock.

I flicked a piece of clay at Bub and asked, "Is he better now?"

Rea translated as he rolled his eyes and said, "Give him some food and he'll get over anything."

Taking that as a yes, I flicked some of the clay at Henry and told him how I thought the boulder was launched at us. After he got up and walked down the log to take a look for himself, he agreed that that's probably what happened.

"Thanks for doing whatever it was you did Rea, you saved both mine and Bub's lives."

He slapped himself on his forehead after he said this and said, "Now we owe both you and Kasey for saving our lives. I've gota' start staying out of situations that might kill me."

"You call cutting down a tree and making a strawberry patch something that might kill you?" I laughed at his statement, which got Rea laughing, and soon we were all laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened.

After the mirth died down and we laid about enjoying the life we had nearly lost, Henry spotted the rock Rea had finally cleaned off and asked to see it. She handed it over and after a minute of observing it he calmly stated, "Kasey, you're rich."

"What was that Henry?" I asked off offhandedly as I was helping Rea pick dry clay out of her fur.

"You're a rich man," he said and waved the red rock under my nose, "because this is no ordinary rock. Do you know what type of stone this is?" I took the rock from his hand and looked it over.

"It's just a strange-shaped ruby-red rock," I said.

"That's exactly what it is, except for the strange-shaped part. That, my good friend, is a fully formed ruby crystal in your hand. That's the shape that they grow in."

"Rea said that the hole from the boulder and tree roots was littered with them," I told him in an astonished voice. As soon as I said this, Henry was flying back down the fallen tree with Bub to the hole.

To Rea I said, "You're the rich one, you know. You found them."

"What the heck do I need money for? I have everything I want right here", she said as leaned back against my chest and looked up at me.

"Ha, your right Rea, what do we need money for? We've got each other, and that's all we need," I said as looked down at her and hugged her closer. We sat there feeling a new closeness for one another (near-death experiences will do that) and waited on Henry and Bub to return.

"I think Henry has a sister who's a Geologist, so that explains how he knew what type of rock this thing was. But for what it's worth, I think it would look great on the mantle above the fire place."

"Just what I was thinking,"said Rea.

"I know," I replied.

We sat there in silence for a while until Rea broke it with a thought. I glanced over at the monster boulder after she was done talking and agreed with what she had said.

Henry arrived back after awhile, both he and Bub loaded down with rubies and covered with clay.

"You can have all you want Henry, Because Rea and I decided that we only need a few to decorate the house," I said to him as he and Bub unloaded themselves next to the now dry and cracking clay covered boulder, "and that if its OK with you, the boulder stays where it is, as a monument to Rea and how she saved us all today."

"That's a great idea, but why would you guys think I would want to move the boulder?" he asked after he said thank you about a hundred times and did a little dance of joy with Bub (Bub didn't seem to enjoy that very much).

I told him to go over and knock off some of the dried clay from the huge rock. He did as I asked and brushed his hand over a wide flat area of the stone and froze when he saw what was under the dirt.

The boulder that had nearly killed us was really a monstrous piece of unformed ruby like Rea had thought it was.


End file.
